Sidestep to Magic

By Jessi Hammond

A gargoyle is haunted by a past it can't remember, and teenagers it must protect. Field of Silence

Freydis has two more heroes to find before she can search for her brother. But someone else has found them first. The Last Hero

All Flume wants is a home. But is the land any safer than the sea? Lost and Found

Taji wants to be the first bear shifter to get his car licence. But it's not that easy… Small Victories

Rhin finds the dragon's egg by accident. Now he's in a world of trouble. The Dragonet

Five stories about teenagers and magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kincaid Publishing
• Release date: Sep 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201333447

Book preview

Introduction

As a kid, I read every fantasy and science fiction book in both my (small) school library, and our country town’s Council library. Fantasy books were an escape for me, a place where I wasn’t just a shy, bullied kid.

And when I ran out of books to read, I started writing my own.

Fantasy stories range from those that happen in a world very like our own, except for one or two crucial differences, to those that happen on worlds that have very little relation to ours at all, and are filled with magic and creatures and adventures. I read from one end of fantasy to the other, so I tend to write that way too.

In this collection, you’ll find stories set in the here-and-now, and those set somewhere else.

Magic and creatures are a staple of fantasy, and in Field of Silence, Brock is struggling to learn how to control his rare magic, Fayde is running for her life, and a gargoyle is desperate to remember its own past.

The Last Hero is a part of my Wayfarers series, and focuses on Freydis’s search to find her brother Haakon, who has been consigned to the realms of Hel. You don’t need to have read any of the Wayfarers stories to understand this one.

Like the previous stories, Lost and Found is set on a world very like ours. Flume has spent her life avoiding humans, but now she needs to decide whether to trust them or not.

Bear-shifter Taji, in Small Victories, has the opposite problem. He trusts humans because he’s got no choice, but some humans are afraid of his kind.

Rhin in The Dragonet has even worse problems. In his world the earthborn, such as  unicorns, giants and dragons, are outlawed by Royal Decree, and anyone who helps them can be shot on sight. Which isn’t good for Rhin, who’s just found something he’s almost certain is a dragon’s egg.

Seven teenagers trying to deal with magic in their own way.

Five stories about finding your own place in the world, no matter who or what you are.

One collection that I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading!

Jessi Hammond

The Dragonet

The Earthborn 1

The King of Tanaqui Island has decreed that, because his son was killed by giants, all Earthborn are to be put to death.

Rhin thought he had enough problems already, trying to survive a conniving boss and wary workmates.

But when he literally stumbles over an egg that may well come from one of the rarest Earthborn of all, he finds himself in real trouble…

One

Rhin stumbled along the middle of the dirt road, his feet catching in the ruts carved by wagon wheels and tangling in the clods of dirt kicked up by horses’ hooves. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see them – the moon was high in the sky, and so close to full that everything was painted with a pale silver shine lined with dark shadows. It was almost as bright as day.

It was just that Rhin was drunk.

Gloriously, stupidly, ridiculously drunk.

More drunk than he’d ever been in his life – and he’d only taken his first sip of ale three months ago.

And those ruts and clods reached out to trip his feet and twist his perceptions, so that three times now he’d fallen over a clod – or maybe nothing – and gone sprawling.

The third time, he just rolled over and stared up at the sky.

He knew he should push himself upright and keep going, because if he didn’t he’d end up sleeping off his hangover out here instead of in his cramped bunk in the barn.

At least at the farm someone would kick him awake in the morning and he wouldn’t miss any work hours and give Ellerson another chance to dock him even more pay.

But after what had happened that afternoon – well, yesterday afternoon now, probably – he’d had enough. Another ‘accident’, this time not latching the gate and letting sixty prize sheep wander into the road. Something else he hadn’t done that had put more coin onto his debt.

At this rate, he’d be paying back Ellerson the six weeks he’d worked at premium wages for the rest of his life.

And he’d just wasted two coppers of his meagre savings on ale that he really didn’t need.

‘Argh,’ he moaned. He was a big, stupid, gullible idiot.

If he’d been smarter, if he’d listened to Ma and Pa, if he hadn’t been so keen to see more of the world than Waterford (and be honest, Rhin, more of Sabrina Ellerson too, and he knew he wasn’t the only one at the mill with that wish), he wouldn’t have fallen for Ellerson’s lies and be lying on a dirt road right now.

The Ellersons were one of the richest families in the Southern Plains. Over the last sixty years they’d built five mills in five towns, all along the River Tor. Three years ago they’d replaced all the waterwheels, and production had increased by a third on the spot.

That was why Rhin had been working in the mill when Ellerson came round to inspect it, trailed by his daughter, Sabrina. The miller had needed the extra labour once production increased, and Rhin had needed the extra coin to help his family buy more stock and seed for their farm.

He hadn’t realised then that Ellerson had been watching him. The folk of Waterford knew Rhin, had known him since he was a few months old. The fact that he was near eight feet tall and had the outsize strength that youth and a powerful build could give didn’t matter to them.

To Ellerson, it mattered a great deal.

The sum he promised to pay Rhin if he came to work at one of his Riversleigh farms was twice his mill wage. Since Rhin was two months shy of sixteen at the time, and still a minor, Ma and Pa had had to countersign his work contract. They hadn’t been enthusiastic about doing so, and Rhin was still amazed he’d been able to talk them into it.

In hindsight, he should have listened to their misgivings and kept his big, flappy mouth shut.

Oh, everything was fine for six weeks. He’d shared a room with five other farmhands at Ellersons’ main farm, and worked as hard as he could to show them their trust wasn’t misplaced.

Too bad his was.

Because in the seventh week he was told to pack his gear and report to a smaller farm half a day’s walk away… where he was told by a grim-faced Ellerson that his contract was being revoked and he would be working off the cost of a shattered plough.

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t done it. There were witnesses. And, one of the other farmhands told him, the local Provost was married to one of Ellerson’s brother’s daughters and would uphold any charges Ellerson brought against him.

Both Ma and Pa distrusted the King’s Provosts. Now Rhin knew why.

But the plough was only the first thing. Next it was a load of ruined hay – apparently he’d left it out in the rain, even though it hadn’t rained, and there was no evidence of any wet hay when he looked. Next it was broken tools, then missing tools which were found under his bunk (‘we’ll let it go this time, boy, but the next time I’ll get the Provost involved,’), and on and on.

He’d been in Riversleigh for almost a year now, and his debt was bigger than it had been since Ellerson had revoked his contract.

And the worst thing was, he could never go back home.

Ellerson had put it around Riversleigh and Waterford that Rhin had asked to walk out with Sabrina, and when she told him no, she was already spoken for, he’d destroyed a bunkhouse and several carts in a jealous rage. Ellerson would point them out too if anyone came asking. The long, low wooden building with broken windows and doors ripped from their hinges and holes in the walls, that had now been rebuilt (and that Rhin had worked to pay off for almost five months). The two big wooden haulage carts, metal wheels twisted on their axles, which had taken a month of his wages to repair. And a small cart with a cracked axle and broken shafts that Ellerson had decided wasn’t worth fixing.

His sons had enjoyed wrecking the building they were already planning on repairing, Ellerson had told Rhin with a smirk. And Sabrina was now so afraid of him that she’d moved back to the main family farm, which she’d done the day before Rhin’s so-called jealous rampage. And the carts… well, they’d seen better days, and the money saved on repairing them instead of buying new ones because of Rhin’s temper could go on new sheep.

Rhin didn’t get angry very often – he’d learned early that he could do some real damage because of his size – but that night he’d spent two hours chopping kindling, and the chopping-block now had several deep furrows in its surface that hadn’t been there before.

An owl hooted in the distance, and Rhin turned his head sideways.

Farmland stretched out around him, crops pale in the moonlight and rustling in the wind. Most of it was Ellerson’s; his family had been here since the Southern Plains was settled. They owned most of the farmland in and around Riversleigh, and a lot of the businesses too. The land either side of the road was packed full of crops, summer crops ready to harvest (which was what he’d probably be doing tomorrow – no, later this morning), and winter crops being planted (which Ellersons’ kids and the kids of their farm workers would be doing).

Edging each paddock were rows of trees forming natural windbreaks, some wider than others because of the contours of the ground. They loomed dark against the moonlit paddocks, their leaves rustling softly in the breeze that was starting to kick up. He must have come further than he realised, because he recognised the lightning-shattered tree that stood slightly away from the rest of the windbreak to the right. The farm’s main entrance was about half a mile up the road, but Rhin knew that if he followed this windbreak he would come to the far paddock of the farm, and he’d be able to sneak back through it and into the barn where he slept without anyone noticing.

He hoped.

He rolled onto his side, then onto his hands and knees, then pushed himself upright, swaying a little with arms out for balance.

Then, carefully, he turned off the road and onto the grass.

Two

The fourth time he fell really wasn’t his fault.

He was making good progress, despite the world tending to tip to the left, and was almost to the corner of the back paddock when something barrelled into him from behind and sent him flying. He hit the ground with an ‘Ooof!’, then a breathless ‘Ow!’ as his shoulder hit something that definitely wasn’t the ground.

Because dirt didn’t give out a low, ringing bong-g-g noise, like Waterford Hall’s massive bell chiming to call folk to village meetings.

But this thing definitely wasn’t a bell.

It looked more like a dark, splotchy chicken egg.

If an egg could grow to near two feet long.

‘Don’t think I want to meet your mama, egg,’ he murmured, then jerked back in surprise as a shadow detached itself from the trees.

Aremis the donkey stared at him, his head tilted to one side, his long ears pointing forward. He wasn’t the biggest of animals, but he had his kind’s coarse grey fur and tufted tail and curious nature without the grouch that most donkeys had.

‘So it was you belted my backside. After all those oats I sneak for you, too.’ He reached up to pat the donkey’s fur, and Aremis nudged at his hand with his nose. ‘I know, I shouldn’t be out here, and neither should you. Ellerson’ll dock my pay more if anyone finds you out.’ He grabbed a hold of Aremis’s mane, using the donkey to steady himself as he got to his feet. ‘And I guess this thing shouldn’t be here either, whatever it is.’

Keeping hold of Aremis’s mane, he crouched and gathered the egg, or whatever it was, into his arm and rose to his feet. ‘Come on then, let’s get both of us home.’

Thing couldn’t be an egg, he thought as he walked beside the donkey. Only thing big enough to lay something this huge would be a dragon, and they’ve been extinct for generations. He tried